this
http://a411.ac-images.myspacecdn.com/images01/108/l_796d2104e9da56842c9b16d123085bb2.jpg
became thishttp://a141.ac-images.myspacecdn.com/images01/110/l_034c669840d7921070365c4f4bd0437c.jpg
which became this
http://a4.ac-images.myspacecdn.com/images01/10/l_3ea0f8844d8649e1e2a6f14b863537db.jpg

nickmarshallvfx

06-29-2008, 12:59 AM

Your environments are suffering from their lighting. That shanty town is a good example coz the sketch has great perspective and lots of potential, but the coloured sketch is lacking in any lighting and becomes very flat. Try working on that and i think your enviros will come to life!
I can recommend Jeremy Vickery's Practical Light and Colour dvd, released by gnomon last year. Great dvd.

Soundwav, I'm sorry no one has told you this before now, but you have some severe perspective issues with your architecture drawings.

You must be placing your vanishing point waaaayyy too far off in the distance, because your buildings ALL have a horrible slant to them, Exterior AND interior. In fact, that interior view is one of the worst. All you have to do is look at the slant of the floor tiles closest to the bottom of the picture plane, and you should be able to recognize how a viewer would NEVER see the floor in front of them at that angle.

Whoever taught you how to grid perspective either forgot to teach you, or you forgot to remember, that your frontmost horizontal lines HAVE to be perpendicular to your canvas (for "level" renderings, of course), along with matching your horizon line.
Straight lines are a must for architectural renderings, but the perspective is equally important. Your perspective is skewed...
http://img113.imageshack.us/img113/1866/buildingps3.gif
http://img527.imageshack.us/img527/1324/building2uk6.gif

Your figures are okay, but too crude to really give you much feedback except that your stylization of shoulder and elbow joints really detracts from everything else, because they look so wonky, the visual whole of the image is affected. You might also consider actually "finishing" some of them, as you leave them too crude to effectively solidify them. They are all little more than quick doodles.

You have a very good sense of color, showing good skill in rendering complementary color schemes.

~C

soundwaves

08-08-2008, 05:50 PM

Thanks for the crit! The perspectives are generated by 3D models. I much more enjoy the postwork in Photoshop, so as soon as the model gets to a certain point I bring it into photoshop for the fun part. So you are right, I am not spending enough time considering the view. Some modeling programs have a button to click to keep vertical lines parallel but the version of C4D I am using doesn't have that option. (or maybe it does and I don't where it is!)
The way I learned to draw perspectives traditionally was by generating them from a plan and elevations, but you are right, I don't really remember how to do it.(esp. since computers have taken over, but some of the best work I've seen seems to combine digital and traditional techniques.) I think spending more time planning the image in the initial stages will help with some of these flaws. Thanks for the pointers!

Compared with your images at the start of this thread, your skills are deteriorating instead of improving...

That's the problem with speedpainting, it doesn't improve your skills, merely your speed.
If you aren't technically skilled enough to render accurately with few strokes, you just end up making a mountain of sketchy, sloppy, colored doodles...

I guess it may work as a motivational thing, in getting people to draw something on a daily basis, but all the time added up from making doodles is time lost from making something visually finished and of note...You'd be better off spending 45 minutes every day on the same piece, striving for cleaner lines, better thought out colors, lighting, and detailing, and actually finishing 1-2 pieces a week.

Compared with your images at the start of this thread, your skills are deteriorating instead of improving...

That's the problem with speedpainting, it doesn't improve your skills, merely your speed.
If you aren't technically skilled enough to render accurately with few strokes, you just end up making a mountain of sketchy, sloppy, colored doodles...

I guess it may work as a motivational thing, in getting people to draw something on a daily basis, but all the time added up from making doodles is time lost from making something visually finished and of note...You'd be better off spending 45 minutes every day on the same piece, striving for cleaner lines, better thought out colors, lighting, and detailing, and actually finishing 1-2 pieces a week.

Just my opinion.

~C

Hey there,
CyberGfx has certainly a point there. But I see that a bit more diffrentiated. I would say that you can learn a lot doing speedpaintings. Not just being fast. But I also think if your focus is learning then speed shouldn't be your main concern. But the daily approach to different problems is very worthy. I for my self take every day as much time as I need to complete the painting as far until I am satisfied. And every now and then I take it even further and go into details, which is very important, then I learn a lot at doing that.

soundwaves

08-15-2008, 05:10 PM

Right on!
Anytime spent on the tablet is time well spent.
Sort of like a bow drawn without an arrow or a musician just cradling his instrument kind of thing.

Hey man, i like your perspective pieces a lot, they could probably benefit from stronger values though. With the limitless possibilities of digital media its easy to "overdo" a piece, i think your latest ones are starting to overcome that. My fav so far is that Stargazer one, keep up the work and it will pay off!

Good stuff soundwav, i'm digging your sci-fi worlds. They feel sorta grity and broken in, more realistic that way. I think when you combine human figures in the compositions, it brings them to life more, and creates the believability that people actually habitate these enviros.

William you've been busy haven't you... i'm really diggin your updates! Those planes have a real antique feel to em.. and as usual your perspective is dynamic and perfectly executed. Keep up the good work man!

I've got a question for ya: when you set up your grid lines and perspective points...it seems like they are well off screen right? How do you keep your lines correct when they go well off the canvas? I'm assumming you work totally in digital?

soundwaves

03-05-2009, 04:59 PM

Thanks :buttrock:
On a piece where the vanishing point is well off screen...
http://c2.ac-images.myspacecdn.com/images02/40/l_53c5846cf0b0413b9500a4c034920ded.jpg
Start with a larger canvas than what you are eventually going to frame. :beer:
Knowing when to eyeball it, and when to make it exacting... :banghead:

http://a3.l3-images.myspacecdn.com/images02/113/2f3046822b4445bf8bc71592ae1cb437/l.jpg
The idea here was a music storage library, vinyl, cds, digital files... Even the columns
would be stacked with music :hmm:

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